What do we think of Apple’s iPhone 11 news?

by Jonny Evans
·
Published September 11, 2019
· Updated September 12, 2019

The new cameras impress

Apple’s big announcements this week are generating global interest, but I wanted to get some sense of how real people reacted to the news.

What do we think?

To get some idea, I reached out to social media management and analytics platform, Sprout Social, who have provided me with global Twitter data that company gathered on September 10.

I thought it might help provide some sense into consumer sentiment.

The stats confirm that the biggest positive sentiment was generated by news of the iPhone 11 Pro Max, though in terms of signal volume, there’s no doubt that the iPhone 11 generated the most interest with over 1.7 million Twitter mentions.

It’s also interesting to see some negative sentiment to the Apple Watch Series 3 price cut – I’ve a hunch this reflects reactions from users of other activity devices, but have no way of proving so.

‘See’ already has lovers and loathers

Another interestingly polarized reaction is visible when it comes to Apple’s newly-revealed show, ‘See’. This only generated 10k Twitter mentions according to Sprout Social, but two contrasting reactions: while around a third (35%) of these were positive, just under a fifth were negative (18%).

Thing is, when it comes to smash hit TV shows you often see such extreme reactions (many people despise Game of Thrones), so Apple has a chance to create a hit series, so long as it actually delivers on expectation.

iPhone interest seems strong

Returning to iPhones, for all the hype around the lack of support for 5G, consumer reaction seems pretty positive with a very small quantity of negative sentiment – when it comes to the 1.7 million Tweets around iPhone 11 yesterday, 48% were positive and just 9% negative. For Apple, the real challenge is attracting the 43% of Twitterers whose sentiment is ranked as “unrated” – if it can reach those people it has sales.

I’m not saying the data is particularly accurate – after all, we know that around 1.8 million people watched Apple’s event on YouTube, so the number of Tweets seems quite low in comparison to interest, but I do feel that these statistics provide some insight into how Apple watchers are reacting to the news.

So, without further ado, here are the stats:

iPhone 11

Volume: 1,730,393 total Twitter mentions

Sentiment:

48% Positive

43% Unrated

9% Negative

iPhone 11 Pro

Volume: 232,316 total Twitter mentions

Sentiment:

58% Positive

48% Unrated

4% Negative

iPhone 11 Pro Max

Volume: 171,452 total Twitter mentions

Sentiment:

67% Positive

30% Unrated

3% Negative

Media and analysts arrive at Apple’s iPhone event

Apple Event

Volume: 2,675,435 total Twitter mentions

Sentiment:

34% Positive

59% Unrated

7% Negative

Apple Watch Series 5

Volume: 34,438 total Twitter mentions

Sentiment:

31% Positive

62% Unrated

7% Negative

Apple Watch Series 3

Volume: 1,825 total Twitter mentions

Sentiment:

26% Positive

57% Unrated

17% Negative

Apple TV+

Volume: 54,815 total Twitter mentions

Sentiment:

32% Positive

59% Unrated

9% Negative

Tim Cook stands in front of an image of the new iPhone 11 Pro camera

Apple Arcade

Volume: 39,836 total Twitter mentions

Sentiment:

37% Positive

55% Unrated

8% Negative

Apple TV+ See

Volume: 10,691 total Twitter mentions

Sentiment:

35% Positive

47% Unrated

18% Negative

So, that’s what Twitter seems to think, what do you think? Let everyone know in the poll and comments below.